


Inelegance

by timbrene



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: F/F, Pre-Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-07
Updated: 2018-05-07
Packaged: 2019-05-03 14:25:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,193
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14570928
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/timbrene/pseuds/timbrene
Summary: Yasha never learned how to act in polite society. Luckily, Beauregard has never been polite.





	Inelegance

**Author's Note:**

> I'm trying to get better about letting myself post things, so here's something quick. Takes place after the Nein (as I assume they will, but who knows?) take the final round in the Victory Pit.

They insist on treating her at the fanciest bar in town.

She does her best to decline, but by the time she has half the stumbling words out, Jester has already made a beeline toward the Silken Terrace, babbling about expensive things she misses.

It’s not that Yasha isn’t grateful. Truthfully, it’s rather enjoyable having her friends—are they friends?—beam up at her, impressed approval clear on their faces. It’s just that… well, this is a very big city, and all of a sudden, everyone in it seems to want to speak with her.

She should have stayed asleep in the alley.

“You’re that big woman from the fight!” a small child calls from the edge of the street, and she manages a half-hearted nod as his parent drags him away.

He isn’t the last. As they make their way toward the Terrace, the festival crowds shift after her. More than once, Fjord and Molly politely peel an admiring spectator off of her, and once, Jester has to scare off a man who seems to want Yasha to write her name on a piece of paper.

It’s all… a lot.

She misses the road.

Perhaps, she thinks with not much hope, the guards at the gate will turn them away again. But the guards take one look at her and their eyes go wide, and Yasha knows she will have no such luck today.

Fjord buys the Nein a round of the most expensive ale they carry. Yasha hunches over her drink and settles in at the bar. At least there, her face isn’t visible to anyone who isn’t looking for it.

The others spread out gradually, disappearing one by one to get up to whatever it is they get up to. The occasional burst of laughter draws her attention more than once, but Yasha stares dutifully forward into her drink.

The stares on the street, at least, had been impressed. The festival-goers had seen the Nein triumphant, seen Yasha lead the charge to their unlikely victory, and wanted a brush with what they thought was greatness.

Here, no one is impressed. Here, she takes up too much space, and does so the wrong way.

It’s as though they all know a game she never learned. There are right things to say, and she never says them. There is a proper way to move, to sit, to walk, to smile, and she does it all wrong. They make sure she knows. The stares follow her. A constant reminder from all sides that she is too big, too strange, too awkward and inelegant.

For a while, she had thought of Caleb, at least, as a kindred spirit; he, too, seems to shrink away from lengthy interaction where he can, and several sympathetic glances have forged them a certain shaky solidarity. But even he, in all his social clumsiness, seems able to slip into an easy sort of charm when it’s called for. He is uncomfortable where she is unpolished.

If he doesn’t want them to, no strangers stare at him the way half the bar is staring at her.

Head tucked down, she tries to catch Molly’s eye across the room, but finds him talking Caleb’s ear off at a table in the corner. Busy. She hunches further down. In the fray, Caleb’s spell had made her massive, and she had felt impossibly strong—but here she only wishes she were small.

She nearly jumps out of her seat when a mug of ale slams down onto the bar beside her, before with a flood of relief she recognizes the woman sliding into the seat next to her.

“Hey,” Beau says with a smirk. “How you liking the place?”

Yasha stares down into her drink, trying to ignore the tangible eyes on her back.

“Oh, you know,” she replies.

Beauregard takes a swig from her drink with a wobble that tells Yasha it isn’t her first.

“That’s a ringing endorsement,” she says. “Not a fan of the house special? Pretty sure the more expensive something is, the shittier the time you’re gonna have drinking it.”

Yasha’s bark of laughter surprises even herself. It appears to delight Beau, who leans both elbows onto the bar and grins.

“Hey, we can find you something better. Bar...boy?” She waves a hand in the general direction of the bartender, who shoots back a disgusted glare. Yasha fights down a smile. “Give me two rounds of whatever you clean the floor with.”

Yasha reaches across the bar and lowers Beau’s hand back to the table.

“Don’t do that,” Yasha tells the barkeep. “Just something strong and cheap will do. Please.”

The bartender wanders off grumbling. Yasha looks back to Beau, and is caught thoroughly off-guard by the wide-eyed surprise in her face. It takes her a moment to remember her hand still rests atop Beau’s on the bar.

“Sorry,” she says, hastily drawing back.

She can feel Beau watching her as she takes another long drink. Another set of eyes, well aware that she doesn’t know how to carry herself. She braces herself for whatever snide comment is coming her way.

“Hey, I’m not one to complain about a handsome lady holding my hand,” Beau says instead, and Yasha’s gaze snaps back up to her.

She’s smiling.

Yasha has absolutely no idea what to do with that.

But, says the warmth gathering in her chest, it’s not at all the worst dilemma she’s been faced with.

“Fifty copper.” The bartender shakes her from her thoughts as he places two more mugs in front of them. Beau forks over the coin, grabs her new drink, and gives Yasha a grin.

“Wanna toast something?” she asks. “You’re pretty much the woman of the hour.”

The look on her face must be enough to convey Yasha’s mental recoil at the thought, as Beau gives her a thump on the shoulder with her free hand.

“Hey, no worries. Drinking’s just as good without a speech.”

Yasha doesn’t answer. Instead, she brings the mug close to her face and takes in the scent. It’s horrible. She wonders fleetingly if the bartender truly has given them the floor cleaner, just to spite them. But the unmistakable stench of alcohol cuts through, and that’s enough for now. Something unrefined and basic.

Yasha looks from Beau to her mug and back, and steels herself. She takes the mug in hand, fist perhaps clenched tighter than need be around the handle, and holds it between herself and Beau.

“To cleaning the floor,” she says.

“Cleaning the floor!” Beau half-shouts, and half the bar turns to stare. Yasha watches them watch her, watches the same disapproving stares turn on her friend—and yes, she realizes, they are friends after all—as the people begin to murmur.

She watches Beauregard ignore them all, raising her mug with a slosh and shooting a theatrical wink to Yasha. Lopsided, brash, inelegant.

Yasha raises her mug with a small smile, knocks it against Beau’s with enough force to send a quarter of the contents spilling across the bar, and lets the ale stream down her face as they drink deep, together.


End file.
